


Where the Hearth Is

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Bloodplay, Clothed Sex, Frottage, Multi, Post-Season/Series 02, Vampire Bites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-23 15:05:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: Trevor makes it two weeks before he just has to return to the castle to check if Alucard had eaten any villagers. Sypha would like to know if he is starving himself like they both suspect. It turns out, there was a reason to be nervous.





	Where the Hearth Is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/gifts).



> Dear scorpiod!  
> I hope you enjoy this take on your prompts, even though it turned rather ridiculous in places. Thanks go out to L and S who helped immensely by letting me whine when this continued to grow, and grow, and grow.

Sypha didn’t mention leaving behind the third party of their travelling group and so Trevor didn’t dare talk about him either.

Trevor managed not to spoil the voyage with his thoughts about Alucard in that great big castle through the first village, and through the city where they met up with a Speaker clan. He managed to be merry for a while and not flirt with danger —and the women— as he usually did. They stocked up on food and other necessary things like blankets, because the entire castle apparently didn’t have any, and continued on, killing the occasional demon whenever they came across any. It was efficient, and much more than Trevor had done on his own. It wasn’t as lonely.

Through mutual agreement, they had decided to avoid larger settlements (and churches) and so they spent a lot of their nights out in the open. Usually, even with the many blankets, they were cold around the campfire. Sypha didn’t shy away from getting close, even when they’re the only two people around. She was comforting—if she wasn’t beside him like this, he didn’t think he could’ve slept. Even with the pair of them snug around each other, there was a wolf-shaped hole around them.

Trevor didn’t mention the soft-furred wolf that used to curl around them, much softer and warmer than the coarse blankets. And then he stared into the fire and didn’t think about long blond hair and the wicked curl around Alucard’s lips. Sypha was already more than he had ever expected, Sypha was lovely.

He didn’t mention his worries, that Alucard stayed behind only to suffer in silence, and to waste away until he is only a shadow of his former self and unrecognisable as himself. Alucard had lost all tethers to life, hadn’t he, and Trevor knew exactly how that felt.

It never felt good.

"Do you think he’ll go out into the village to get something to eat?" Trevor asked. The sun was high on the sky, and nothing from his dreams and nightmares and the wishes he had in the middle of the night remained, and yet he couldn’t help wondering.

They had left behind the last city, and have travelled too far for any sane person to still think about the one they left behind. Didn’t leave behind, because he stayed voluntarily, dammit, and Trevor should respect his choice. It was a sensible decision. There was nothing Trevor hated more than the image of Alucard in that castle all alone, surrounded by the belongings of his dead parents but that was not unreasonable: He was the least sensible person around. Someone had to watch over the incredibly dangerous, incredibly incendiary materials collected over the years by both Dracula and the Belmonts. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

Sypha knew exactly who he was talking about. She made him wait for her answer anyway, musing on it the same way that Trevor had been. While they had no need of the wolf during the daylight, Alucard had tempered them, better than even he was aware of. "No," she said finally. "He’ll hole himself away in his draughty castle."

That was exactly what Trevor had thought. He didn’t say anything, because Sypha got a big head when he let her run roughshod over everything. She would become unbearable. There was only so long, however, he could hold his tongue, and so it spilled out of him, "Won’t he starve himself, though?"

Sypha was holding the reins of their cart, and so when she sat up ramrod straight and pulled on the reins, the whole cart halted; probably a bit more abruptly than intended.

"He’s going to starve himself, isn’t he?" she repeated, horrified. A few more heartbeats, where Trevor thought about the beautiful, already gaunt figure of Alucard pining away in his tower and Sypha probably thinking the same. Finally, Sypha came to the conclusion Trevor wanted her to and said, "We have to go back! He’s going to starve himself."

"Do we have to?" Trevor asked and feigned reluctance. He told himself that vampires could deal with hunger, that Alucard hadn’t eaten for 100 years, or maybe just one year, and he had survived. There was no need to rush now.

Sypha just looked at him. Trevor decided against milking this more. He hopped down from his perch and directed the horses the other way. They weren’t very happy about turning around in the middle of the road, probably as happy as Alucard was going to be when they poke and prod him out of his voluntary confinement.

Now that Trevor found a way to return, he felt calm. He was going to see about how Alucard was dealing with the situation—there was no point in fretting before he has an overview of the situation. Sypha, on the other hand, couldn’t hide her fretting. Then again, she hadn’t had half of his practise either.

"He’s going to be mad, isn’t he?" she asked at one point when Trevor had long gotten used to her constant checking of their luggage, the maps, and the harness. She’d been driving the horses to distraction, and so Trevor had taken over the reigns.

He hummed instead of answering one way or another. He didn’t know, wasn’t keen to think about which madness Sypha meant, anger or craziness. That felt strange in and off itself. One part of him recognised a fellow spirit, someone who mourned for all that he had lost, and yet felt no inclination of joining them—but then, after the scene at the castle, when his father had broken down in front of him and Alucard had killed him, had managed to do that thing that Trevor had wanted to do since the church burned down their estate and couldn’t— now, he didn’t know what Alucard would do. Alucard had always been stronger than him, both physically and mentally, and didn’t that smart like the wicked edge of Vampire Killer.

"I’m going to punch him in the face if he gets mad," Sypha said, finding her resolve suddenly. "Twice if he yells."

Trevor shook his head to hide his smile. "He’s not going to yell at a woman, he’s too well-bred for that."

Sypha thought about it for a second, then nodded. "Yes, I agree. He’s very polite, unlike some other people I could mention." And then she started listing all the other attributes that Alucard was much better at than Trevor. A different man might have grown a complex.

The aforementioned other person ruthlessly suppressed his grin. He shouldn’t let on that he agreed with everything she said, wholeheartedly.

 

The castle loomed in the distance. It was the sort of building that would loom naturally, even surrounded by the mountains as it now was. Trevor hadn’t ever seen another castle so full of theatrics, so designed to intimidate and show off the darkness of its inhabitants — and the former Belmont estate served a perfect backdrop for the sheer immensity of its character.

He couldn’t see a tiny blond figure pining away in the window, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. They were a few miles away still.

"What about the castle?" he wanted to know of one of the pedlars they were currently travelling with, not voluntarily but because of the constraints of using the same road. "It looks like it belongs to a mighty lord." Nothing as inconspicuous as the giant looming thing to start a conversation, especially about how it was viewed by the locals.

The traveling salesman paled, beginning to stutter. A braver one of his compatriots came to his aid. "That’s the Belmont castle," he said, and Trevor managed to hide his disbelief just in time. Great. Another thing the church could condemn them for. "They say it appeared out of thin air 13 years after the church had condemned them, and they unveiled their revenge on everyone who damned them." His voice grew lower as he continued, "They brought with them the vengeance demons from hell and rained fire on every single one of them. And you know what the church did?"

Trevor unconsciously lowered his voice too. "What did they do?"

The salesman cackled loudly and pointed to someone further down the line of their caravan. "They sent that poor fucker to check on the castle that appeared out of thin air with all the forces of darkness! To exorcise the demons apparently."His opinion on the futility of the endeavour was very clear.

"What?" Trevor sat up. He sent a look over to the bland looking fellow in robes. Could’ve been anyone, except for the seal on his cart and the cross around his neck. "Are they insane?" he couldn’t help asking.

"Your guess is as good as mine," the salesman shrugged, then grinned, "but between you and me, I think he may have criticised the archdiocese and has been sent to—" he dragged a line across his neck.

"Ah," Trevor said, and looked again. He did seem resigned to his fate. Poor bastard, to realise his worth to his superiors in that way. Too bad that he’d return unharmed. Alucard probably wasn’t too keen on murdering him, not if they’d come back to the same Alucard they had left behind.

He leaned over to Sypha and asked in a whisper, "Do you know anything about how the church deals with detractors that aren’t Belmonts?"

She shot him a look full of askance. "I’m a Speaker," she said — and point to her, Trevor had briefly forgotten. "There’s pretty much only one step between violently burning everything you own and permanent ostracising, and it is fines."

"Huh." Trevor really did not know a lot about heresy, for all that he was a godforsaken heretic himself. "So how would Alucard react to a priest on his doorstep?"

"Well, he wouldn’t punch him in the face and miss, like some other people I could name."

Trevor thought about protesting, for a hot minute, but fair enough—he’d missed more times than he would like to admit, and the only recent success at punching was Dracula, and yeah. That one was better left forgotten.

"What, no protest? Are you giving up so easily, Belmont?" Sypha said, a fair imitation of Alucard’s elegant enunciation. She was more cheerful, now that they were closing in on the Belmont lands and the castle.

Trevor rolled his eyes at her, but secretly he was amazed at her ability to roll with the punches, to go in and take charge, and get everything she wanted. He wondered even more why she thought leaving Alucard mourning on his own was a good idea. Perhaps she didn’t really understand the concept of loneliness, travelling as the Speakers did. They’d barely been away two weeks, and there was no lack of friendly faces for Sypha on the road. It felt nice, when it didn’t feel creepy when everyone had known they were travelling together before they had even arrived. But Trevor knew intimately what it was like to have your life break out from under you, and then spending your time on the run: Grief had a habit of catching up with you.

"And where are you going?" the merchant continued the conversation. "Will you be travelling with us to the next market?"

Trevor leaned back and showed a big sunny smile. "That would be lovely, but we are expected at my family holdings further that-a-way." He pointed to the big scary castle in the distance, and that was the end of the conversation. People were still scared to talk to those doomed to die.

The priest was still there, hunched over and miserable. Trevor would have felt bad, if he hadn’t met too many priests with not a single kind bone in their body. His scar tingled, and he focused back on the road.

An ominous sign was pointing into the direction their cart was going, while the other direction was leading towards the town the forces of darkness had tried to conquer. A couple of their fellow travellers sent well-wishes in the belief that Trevor and Sypha were going to meet their maker. Trevor wasn’t going to tell them that as a Belmont, he had more right to the so-called Belmont Castle than the lot of them, and especially the priest, but that would have invited scrutiny he didn’t want.

The priest didn’t follow after them, probably checking in at the church so they knew where he was going and weren’t expecting him elsewhere. Not that he was going to die.

Trevor was pretty sure that Alucard wasn’t one for indiscriminately murdering priests. Probably.

Through the woods surrounding the Belmont estate, they arrived at the castle doors undisturbed. Birdsong was accompanying them on their way, so Trevor figured that none of the demons had returned and it was reasonably safe to approach which they do.

While Sypha dealt with the horses, Trevor cricked his neck staring up at the castle windows—but there was no lonely figure of Alucard anywhere to be seen.

"Where do you think he is?" Sypha asked after they step into the castle proper. She tilted her head. "I’d have expected him to know we have arrived, somehow."

"Well, only one way to find out." Trevor decided to through all caution to the wind and shouted for the bastard to come out.

In the great halls, his voice echoed. There was no reply.

"Where is he?" Sypha asked again, more urgent now.

Trevor figured the bastard was trying to scare them, perhaps wait them out. He didn’t want company back when they left and now… Trevor would have been languishing in a bottle.

Sypha was going further inside without him—rushing in where angels fear to thread. The only thing he could see clearly was her bright head of red hair. He could hear her call for, "Kelvin! Who’s a good puppy?" quite clearly, however.

He couldn’t tell if there was movement or not. What if something had come out of the Belmont archives? What if some demon had returned, bigger and mightier than Alucard could deal with in the funk he had been in?

With a growl, the damn dog sprang out of the shadows and bit into Trevor’s boots. At least he couldn’t feel the teeth on his feet. Sypha turned around with the noise and watched in glee as he hopped around with the dog attached. "Get off, get off, get off," he chanted—Sypha had burst out laughing, and couldn’t contain herself.

Finally, Trevor managed to dislodge the zombie dog — with absolutely no help from Sypha — and then he kept him away with a stick pulled out of the random rubble that was still surrounding the entry hall.

It had been quite a ruckus, but there was still no sight of Alucard. Sypha had apparently come to the same conclusion because suddenly her hiccoughing laughter stopped.

"He must be asleep," she said firmly.

Trevor nodded. Anything else was simply inconceivable. "We should go find him before it gets dark."

Sypha was already on the stairs. "Let’s check the office first."

The castle was still very dark and gloomy, not somewhere Trevor would want to live permanently. Alucard didn’t seem to have similar sensibilities—and Trevor got used to sleeping in barns, he could get used to living in an obvious vampire lair, couldn’t he? Occasionally, they stumbled over a pile of dust or a heap of bones leftover from the cleanup.

There was no sign of Alucard, however. No sign of anyone living in fact, and even the mutt seemed subdued.

"It feels like a dark, silent grave," Sypha broke the silence first.

Trevor let out a breath, and only noticed afterwards that he had been holding it in. The halls that weren’t empty, were filled with all sorts of weird scientific instruments not unlike the catacombs of the Belmont family, though curiously he sees less purposeful exhibited bones—most of those are obvious leftovers from vanquished demons.

Alucard wasn’t in his father’s study, nor was he in his old rooms. He seemed to have had no presence since they had last seen him, none of the broken furniture had been pushed aside, the hallway of their fight with Dracula still exactly the same.

Trevor felt a creeping sense of anxious doom, which was why he left to watch the stairs. Anyone could have followed them in, or set up house earlier and was now looking to trap them. Off in a side corridor, Sypha was inspecting the various rooms. When she opened a door, and let out a gasp, Trevor couldn’t help but spring to her defense. It wasn’t a demon left behind in the general confusion, however.

In the dusty looking bedroom that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a century, Alucard was lying on the bed. Trevor and Sypha had seen him like that once, in his own lair waiting for a vampire hunter and a speaker magician. He had looked like a corpse then, a pale and slender corpse as beautiful as something hewn in marble, and he looked like a corpse now. His white shirt was half open, the coat laying on the foot of the bed, the boots on his feet, and still he looked draped appealingly for an audience.

"Alucard!" Trevor said sharply.

There was no reaction from him.

Sypha awakened from her stupor and hastened to his side. With the tangling silver around her arm, she checked his breathing. "He’s alive, if barely," she stated.

"Alucard!" Trevor repeated, shouting almost. No reaction.

Sypha poked him in his ribs — his eyes fluttered a bit underneath his lids, but he didn’t react to protect himself. Trevor knew — Sypha’s fingernails were sharp and pointed, and she used them with great alacrity. Alucard would protect himself from being poked again if he was in any way aware.

He hadn’t eaten in 2 weeks at least, and Trevor didn’t know where he should have eaten before. Alucard had been starving himself for a rather long time, hadn’t he? What should they do now with a half-starved vampire?

While Trevor was lost in his own fears of a half-mad vampire going on a rampage, Sypha had already taken steps to rectify their situation. With the dagger at her side and a quick movement that Trevor wouldn’t be able to stop had he noticed her intentions, she slit her own wrist until blood was welling up. She pressed her arm against Alucard’s mouth, and with her uninjured hand started massaging his throat.

"You idiot!" Trevor couldn’t help but shout. He raced to the window, ripped off a long strip of the curtain, and went to bind of her arm. "You’ll be no use at all when you faint from blood loss! He’s not in control of himself! How do you think he’s going to feel when he wakes up and there’s you, unconscious beside him?"

Sypha looked up at him with her doe eyes, and her spine straight. "You would’ve done the same thing!"

"Wouldn’t have!" Trevor replied like the child he should have left behind. It was a lie anyway, and Sypha knew that half of his protests were because he wasn’t the one who thought of it first. What a pair they made—they desperately needed the more rational Alucard to help them with their decisions.

Sypha’s blood was congealing slowly. The smell of iron was heavy in the air, and Trevor had to swallow down his fear that this wasn’t enough, that they had dallied too long on the road, that Alucard had already joined his parents.

What about Sypha—what about Trevor—what about being the keeper of Dracula’s knowledge? Wasn’t that worth anything?

Then, Alucard’s eyes moved. He opened his lids and stared with unseeing eyes ahead. "Who are you?" was the first thing he asked. Shortly after he managed, "Sypha. You’re alive."

Trevor let out a relieved sigh.

However, Alucard continued much less coherent, "Don’t you dare kill them, father." Was he hallucinating? Alucard had let go of Sypha’s wrist. His mouth was blood-smeared, and his eyes sightless. He was still too pretty to be real, even half out of his mouth as he was.

"Dracula is dead," Trevor told him.

"Dead?" Alucard repeated, a look of despair coming over his face. Trevor held out his arm between Sypha and Alucard, half to hold him back from latching onto Sypha’s wrist again, half to show Sypha that it was his turn now.

"What have you done to yourself?" Sypha asked. She ignored Trevor, as usual, and slipped underneath his arm to stroke over Alucard’s hair. Even not taking care of the beautiful long tresses hadn’t diminished their beauty.

"You idiot," Trevor said again, this time addressed to Alucard. Both of them were idiots, the biggest idiots Trevor had ever met—but then he was maybe the biggest fool of them all, so it all evened out. He fell down on the bed, mostly because his knees were shaking.

He couldn’t take it, why was he so messed up about a vampire of all people?

Alucard was obviously straining himself to settle his hand on top of Sypha’s. When his hand connected, his eyes grew wide. "You’re real," he whispered.

"We came to check how well you were guarding the Belmont treasures," Trevor told him. "It doesn’t seem like you’re up to the job."

Alucard should be insulted, he should kick them all out of his castle immediately and is instead lying there like a virgin sacrifice, hair fanned out behind him—and while the blood around his face was disturbing, it was also rather hot, not that Trevor would admit that. Instead, Alucard smiled. His teeth bared were a sight to see, and somehow Trevor wanted them on his neck immediately. Something about him was magnetic and scorching and Trevor didn’t want to escape. "I’m sorry."

It wasn’t a continuation of Trevor’s thoughts, a weird way of rejecting his advances before they had happened, as Trevor had thought at first. Instead, it was an apology about not fulfilling his promise—and maybe Alucard didn’t starve himself intentionally after all. "I didn’t think you needed to save me yet again— thank you for coming back."

"What, no 'Fuck off, Belmont, I can do this on my own'?"

Alucard was still smiling, and closed his eyes. "Obviously, I can’t, after all."

This strange— meek— version of Alucard frightened him. "You’re still unwell," Sypha said, coming to the same conclusion. "Please, drink some more." She pressed her wrist against Alucard’s mouth again.

"No," he replied, turning his head and batting away the offer. "I’ve already taken too much from you. I’m going to be fine."

He was not going to be fine. He was still looking too pale, too gaunt, stretched thin.

"If you won’t take it from her, will you take it from me?" Trevor couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. It was one thing to hunt Dracula with a vampire, and yet another one to offer his home, his blood, his life. Trevor didn’t care.

Alucard looked at him wide-eyed, and so did Sypha. It was up to Trevor to sink onto the bed as well, to tell Sypha to "Scoot over a bit," and make himself comfortable next to them both. (He wouldn’t want to have it any other way.) Sypha was a comforting presence at his back, and Alucard was an exciting prospect on his front.

"Come on, do I have to write you an invitation?" Trevor thought about offering his wrist, as Sypha had. He discarded the thought as he watched Alucard tracing the arch of his neck, the bent of his jugular. A strange feeling for a vampire hunter to want to experience that bite. Purely for research purposes of course. He could write an account for the later generations of Belmonts.

"Didn’t know you could write, Belmont," Alucard said. His focus was intense, and Trevor felt it down to his bones.

Trevor wanted to laugh to relieve the tension—the laugh stuck to his throat. Something about the heavy gaze, the bed, the low light, the hair—Sypha watching the two of them.

He swallowed.

"It doesn’t hurt," Sypha said.

But it did, Trevor could already feel it. Not in the traditional way that wounds usually hurt, but deeper, in his stomach. Alucard hadn’t even bitten him yet.

He swallowed again, and this time, the vampire bit down. The spot on his neck underneath his ear felt so sensitive, so delicate, so good— he gasped.

Sypha’s eyes were dark. She was feeling it, too. Her uninjured arm was pressing against his side. Trevor took her hand and held on. She would just have to deal with the indignity of being a part of this—Trevor didn’t think he could stop this, not any of it, not between all three of them. He wanted it too much, and now that there was a chance he could have it, there was no way for him to resist.

But instead of flinching away from him, which he was always afraid of, Sypha moved closer. "Can you tell how much he likes it?" she asked Alucard in low tones.

Her arm was bloody and so was the originally white shirt that Alucard was wearing. The shirt was split in the front, and there were stray spatters of blood clinging to his pale, almost translucent skin.

Trevor shuddered. It was all of it, her voice, Alucard’s mouth on his neck, the feeling of his blood pumping away and slowly being sucked out to sustain another’s life. It was dangerous and intimate. It was the three of them together. He was so full of desire, he was about to burst.

The coppery smell of blood surrounding him only added to his emotions.

He tried to move away, to stop his growing erection from getting in between their bodies, of his arousal getting noticed. He couldn’t handle having more of his desires fulfilled. This was already more than he deserved—it was Alucard and Sypha who would get the happily ever after, not him.

They were going to be disgusted with him and his desire. This was against all mores. But what was one more heresy in the grand scheme of things?

"Alucard," he gasped. "Is this how you want to welcome us? Half-dead from starving, lying in bed and letting us serve you blood right to your—"

He was interrupted by Alucard letting go of his neck, and biting down again. The words stuck to his throat. His world was getting hazy. Pleasure, the greatest pleasure, was coursing through him. He stopped caring about not letting on about his arousal, because there was no way he could. It was overwhelming.

Something about getting his blood sucked out from the vein on his neck was — exhilarating. An ecstasy reserved for higher beings. He couldn’t describe it in better terms if he had tried. The only thing coming out of his mouth were moans.

"Wow," Sypha said. "You’re sensitive."

Shame flushed through him; heightening the thrill and stimulation. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think—could only feel the pleasure from the bite and every point of contact with the vampire. He wanted to hide his face behind the curtain of Alucard's hair—Sypha reached out and touched his cheek instead. "No, please don’t hide — can I kiss you?" Her voice was velvet in his ears. It took him a bit to comprehend what she was asking.

He nodded. Before the movement was finished, Sypha’s mouth pressed to his. It was a religious experience.

Her lips were soft and insistent, more aggressive than he had secretly imagined. Without conscious control over his hands, they reached out to Alucard’s back to hold onto something solid—andthrough the thin shirt Alucard’s shoulders feel very solid indeed.

Trevor felt faint and unstable. He wanted to sink into the two of them, sink into Sypha’s kiss and her skilled tongue and do unspeakable things to mess up Alucard further. It didn’t seem possible, there was already blood all over the place. How much messier could they get?

When Alucard let go of his neck, Trevor almost sobbed. He felt even more sensitive, now, for some incomprehensible reason, and when Alucard licked over the wound on his neck, he almost came in his pants.

For a few seconds, minutes, he couldn’t tell what was going on. When he turned back into his two partners, his shirt was untucked and half open, and his jacket restrained his arms behind his back. Sypha was tugging it, most likely trying to bend his arms further to get the jacket off entirely. His bones felt like viscous liquid, like the blood soaking into the mattress.

Alucard circled his nipples with a long finger. Inevitably, Trevor’s thoughts shattered again. Trevor was sensitive all over, and yet, there was something more about his nipples.

High-pitched noises were filling the room—and they were coming from him. This was new to him, he didn’t know he could react like that.

"You’re amazing, Trevor," Sypha said into his ear. Her voice was a caress, and filled with both awe and laughter, and he couldn’t—there was—he was on—

Alucard bit into his nipple.

Trevor jerked; arching off the bed. The movement pulled his arms out of his jacket, finally, but there was a mess in his pants now, and the need to undress further had disappeared.

"Wow, that’s hot." Sypha was eying his pants as if there had never been anything more interesting. Trevor wanted to sink into the floor.

Alucard, meanwhile, pressed one last kiss on his nipple before moving up and planting the same tender peck on his lips.

Trevor dumbly stared at him. The vampire was really unfairly pretty for half-starved and covered in blood. "I didn’t know blood sucking would feel like that," he said finally.

Alucard reached out again. He set a hand on Trevor’s neck to check his pulse. "There should be some perks for the donor, don’t you think?" His eyelashes were very long and white, barely visible until one was very close.

"It didn’t feel like that for me," Sypha noted. Unaware of his actions, Trevor leaned sideways until he was half supported by her.

"It probably would have if I had bitten your neck like his."

Sypha looked very intrigued, but instead of testing the hypothesis right now, she wrapped her hands around Trevor.

"I want a nap," he whined. Whenever he was moving, the mess in his pants was awkwardly sticking to his skin. There was blood all around him — he wouldn’t want to sleep right here.

"There is probably a bedroom that isn’t covered in blood, somewhere in this great, big castle," Sypha suggested. Alucard agreed with a nod of his head.

He stood up, careful at first, as if he was expecting some wooziness, and then more sure. When he knew he was steadfast in his balance, he bent down and picked up Trevor carrying him as if he was no heavier than a child. "This is embarrassing," Trevor protested half-heartedly.

"Not from where I’m standing," Alucard countered — and when he laid Trevor on a clean bed, and crawled inside after him, only leaving space for a grinning Sypha, Trevor thought better of arguing the point. He drifted off, thinking faintly of the day Alucard would learn about the "Belmont Castle". That might make this exchange feel more equivalent.

Sypha was stroking his stubble—but with her, he’d never be on equal standing anyway so it mattered less.

 

Trevor startled out of his light doze when the dog started barking like mad. "Go check on your dog," he told Alucard who groaned at the presumption.

"Not my dog," Alucard protested, half-heartedly.

"Ugh, men," Sypha said, and Trevor could feel her rolling her eyes. She got up quickly, and left the room.

A few minutes passed. The barking of the dog stopped, but Sypha didn’t reappear.

"Are there many stray demons around?" Trevor asked idly, and then couldn’t continue laying abed.

Alucard had gotten up with him, but he shook his head in answer to the question. "Nobody has been around. I was alone."

Trevor paused, wondered if a pat on the shoulder was too patronising or even welcome. "Sypha would’ve dealt with demons already — but I think I know what this is about."

He was proved right soon enough: In the entrance hall Sypha and the priest from yesterday were at a standoff, the dog held close in Sypha’s arms. They were in the middle of an argument.

"—dare you come onto private property with the intent to do harm to fellow children of your god!" Sypha shouted at him.

"That dog is possessed! You can see the demon half trying to escape from his flesh!" the priest shouted back, equally upset.

"It’s just a small flesh wound!" Sypha defended her precious mutt. Then, she addressed the dog in her arms, "Don’t listen to the mean priest, you’re adorable, aren’t you?"

Trevor rolled his eyes, and stepped forward. "Now, now, what’s all this business about?" he asked. "My name is Trevor Belmont, and I’m the owner of these lands."

The priest ceased glaring at Sypha. He was facing Trevor, and looked him up and down. "The Belmonts who betrayed their country and sold their souls to the devil?" he asked.

Trevor laughed. He couldn’t help the nervous edge, but it was mostly friendly. He spread out his arms in a welcoming gesture, and said, "Well, it’s certainly true that there had been rumours, but I swear that I have been cleared by the Bishop of Gresit from all heresy charges."

Trevor wished both Sypha and Alucard would stop looking like he had invented the most outrageous lie to date. There was no way anyone had told the church much about what had happened in Gresit, and that was what Trevor was banking about. Also, this priest had just gotten into trouble with his superiors, there was no way he was going to criticise them again and live to tell the tale.

"The Bishop of Gresit?" the priest repeated, disbelieving.

"It was quite difficult to get him to believe my tale of woe, but considering what happened afterwards, he was convinced of my goodwill towards humans and badwill towards demons." Trevor explained further. Sypha was hiding her face with the pug, thank god, and Alucard held onto his stone-face.

"The Bishop is certainly set in his ways," the priest admitted, and Trevor knew that he had him.

"For a minute I thought he would have me executed on sight," Trevor said, and gave a self-deprecating smile.

The priest relaxed somewhat. "When even a zealot like the Bishop agrees on your innocence, then you must be an angel indeed."

Trevor chuckled nervously.

"But the dog," the priest continued, "does have a very strange illness. You should put him down before he infects anyone."

Sypha glared, but Trevor nodded quickly in fast succession. "Yes, yes, we should deal with it as soon as possible. Thank you for checking in with it us, it is very reassuring that the community is in good hands. Was there something else you wanted?" Trevor walked to the door and opened it wide. As if led by the ritual of polite conversation, the priest left, looking bewildered by his own life choices.

Trevor moved to the window by the door and waited until he had cleared out of the driveway. When he let out a relieved sigh and turned around, Alucard and Sypha were looking at him strangely. "What?" Trevor asked, self-conscious.

"Didn’t know you could do polite, Belmont," Alucard said, one eyebrow arched high. Sypha nodded. "That was some amazing fast-talking," she agreed.

"What I really want to know, however," Alucard added, "—why does that priest think this is Belmont land."

Trevor helplessly stared at Sypha. Then, he looked heavenwards. "Suddenly, I feel very woozy! I’m going back to bed," and he ran up the stairs.

"Belmont!" Alucard bellowed, before coming after him—but that was okay, there was always Sypha to rescue him. They were going to be just fine.


End file.
